Reverb 14 – Day 6 – Money & Anger

Today is the sixth day of Reverb 14 – an annual reflective writing community that comes together to review the year that was and prepare for the year that will be. As with last year and the year before, I’ll be participating in both Kat McNally’s Reverb 14 (& I have a guest post!) and the offering from Project Reverb. Please join with us and spend the next several weeks thinking through 2014!

Money. Where did you spend your money this year? Did you save it instead? What, if anything, would you like to do with your finances this year?

Goodness this is a timely prompt. My best friend and I were talking about investments and retirement funds just yesterday and this past weekend, Sweet Husband and I had a conversation about where we eventually want to wind up. It seems like the Universe is sending me a message about getting my money together and set on a healthy path.

As for where our money went this year, that’s a good question. I was thinking this morning that SH and I make a very decent living. We’re not wealthy by any means, but we are comfortable. We have and can do just about whatever we want. In this year we’ve paid off SH’s truck and gotten a few other bills knocked out. However. We’ve also encountered a few other large expenses. We replaced our laptop. Around my birthday, we needed to replace our dryer. SH’s truck needed new brakes (at $800). My Jeep had a few expenses that added up. Gas has been expensive and running up and down the road has been expensive. We went all out for our anniversary trip. We went to Dallas for a football game.

To go along with that, though, I started an annuity that should put us in a very pretty place when we get ready to retire. Husband has upped his contribution to his 401K.

But. I’d like for us to get more secure. SH and I were talking about wanting to get to a place where we are living on just one of our salaries and saving the other salary. I think that is possible, but in order for that to happen means that we’ve got to get serious.

We’re talking about buying our house. We’ve lived here for 3 years now, and we love the place. We know that she has some some issues and will require some work. However, we also think that we could probably get the house for a price that will allow us to save one-third to a half on our monthly housing expenses. That would be a big help.

A budget would be an even bigger help. I’d really like to see us set up a budget and stick to it. I think SH is ready to do that as well. I am considering a few possibilities to help us with that, primarily focused on You Need a Budget, but if you have any other ideas, I’m totally and completely open to that. By the end of 2015, I’d like to see our debt paid off and us making serious strides towards building up our savings. I would really like for us to be able to begin 2016 with the option of saving one of our salaries and living off the other.

From Kat McNally, we get something completely different, and while I know that many people have been skirting the prompt itself, I am going to tackle it head-on because that is what feels right for me, as I’m sure moving around the prompt felt right for the other folks.

Brad aka GeekinHardwrites:Despite our usually sunny dispositions and dedication to the practice of “assuming positive intent,” we all occasionally find ourselves having to deal with an incredibly unpleasant individual.While I’m sure you always handle it with the tact and finesse for which you’ve become so well known, I’m going to ask you to step outside yourself for just a moment.Think back to such a situation: if the gloves were off, how you really would have liked to have dealt with them?

I’ve talked many times here about how I think that my nature is basically negative and pessimistic. It doesn’t take much to put me into a funk and a tailspin. My first inclination is that things are going to be shitty. I work hard at forcing myself to be positive, to use tact, to be polite and respectful. There are many times when really all I want to do rip someone’s head off.

This applies immediately with the situation with my Jeep. There’s been a terrible vibration in it when driving, and now Josie is back in the shop for the 3rd time in 2 weeks. The first time, the shop didn’t do what they said they were going to. The second time a different shop – but one affiliated with the original one (they’re part of the same company) – stopped after balancing the tires, which makes me angry because I told them what I thought was wrong and that I didn’t believe there was any way one tire off balance could cause a vibration that bad. I asked them to check the things I thought it was; they didn’t. Meanwhile, I have to drive 80+ miles one-way in a vehicle that I wasn’t feeling completely safe in.

I wanted to let them have it because me in high dudgeon is a sight to see. I felt disrespected, and I felt like I had been placed in a very dangerous situation.

Instead of being the one who was so confrontational, I let SH handle it. And today when we took Josie back to the shop (for the third time in 2 weeks), I resisted the urge to issue a big fat “I TOLD you SO!” when the tech told me what he thought was wrong with my baby. Instead, I calmly said, “I told them that I thought it was bearings or axle related.” I might have also thrown in there that my mother was a truck driver who pulled triples and I’d been consulting with her about what might be the problem. I didn’t say that both of my besties are married to mechanics and I’d been discussing the issue with them. I did, though, want them to know that I’m not an idiot and taking advantage of me isn’t acceptable.

That’s the most recent incident. Pretty mild, yes? There was also the frustration of my new position in which I wasn’t told what was going on, was never told what was going on and didn’t get much of a choice in the matter. I said lots of dirty words in private and to colleagues, but here in public, probably not appropriate.

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I'm a teacher, writer, and photographer capturing the magical moments of life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast - putting my experience as a teacher and educational staff developer to work crafting stories that chronicle an experience well-lived.

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